One day, later, I found myself sitting on the floor in the middle of the very same cavern where Casimir had once died, circulating my aura, trying to make the flow more efficient with Casimir’s instruction. However, despite the fact that Casimir claimed to have taught hundreds of other soldiers in the military, his instruction was, to put it mildly, awful.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I said.
“That is because you are trying to apply logic to it without understanding it,” replied Casimir from behind me.
“And how am I supposed to understand it without applying logic?”
“You must feel it.”
“This is stupid,” I said, standing up.
“Giving up again?” he asked, still seated with his eyes closed and his aura storming all around him.
“No, I’m just taking a break from you and your terrible tutoring.”
“None of my other students whined this much, and they have all progressed far beyond where you are.”
“They were probably just too scared to ask. Or they were so dumb that they already weren’t thinking, so they didn’t have to change anything to learn properly.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “Or perhaps you simply have no talent for this.”
“If having ‘talent’ for aura means being a thoughtless idiot then I don’t really want that kind of talent anyway.”
He sighed, opened his eyes, and looked up at me. “Learning aura is not a mindless pursuit. Many people, yourself apparently included, believe it to be so, but that could not be further from the truth. Far more so than even magic, aura is a mental exercise. To master aura is to master your mind, and the first step to mastering your mind is learning how to empty it.”
“I think I’ve mastered my mind pretty well without needing to do that emptying bullshit.”
“You may have mastered thinking, but you are hardly better than a child when it comes to controlling your mind. Wait!” he exclaimed, seeing me open my mouth. “Let me finish. You are, without a doubt, very intelligent, and your mind is a very powerful weapon. However, you have become complacent. You act rashly, trusting your abilities to get you out of trouble, and it has worked out every time, so you have ignored your own weaknesses. You are impulsive, emotional, and arrogant, and-”
“I am not arrogant,” I interrupted.
“You are.”
“I am not! I am objective!”
“Objectively arrogant.”
“Alright!” I snapped. “I’m done! I don’t need a teacher who’s just going to insult me and spout nonsense. I’ll figure it out on my own.”
He remained silent as I stormed out. A small part of my mind nagged at me, implying that he might have been right, but in that moment, I ignored it. I had thought I had already made it clear to him that I was chosen by Pride, not the other way around. I was not prideful, and I was not arrogant. Everything I thought about myself was based on objective observation. But apparently he thought otherwise, just like everyone else.
No matter how I tried to explain it, no one else ever understood. I didn’t come to my conclusions about myself for not reason. I was always constantly reevaluating myself whenever I was presented with new evidence, but no matter what way I looked at it, I was the best. That’s not pride. That’s just fact. Pride is delusion, and I was most certainly not delusional. But whether back on Earth or here, nobody ever got it.
About an hour later, once I had had time to cool off, I thought back to what he said, and began to realize that, he had been right, at least partly. I was definitely too emotional and impulsive, and my recent actions had only proved it. To be fair, I was already incredibly frustrated trying to follow his nonsensical instructions, but still, I had left after just a few words. It was, as he said, impulsive and emotional. I’m sure if I could see my own weaknesses like I could others, it would say exactly that.
Wait. Could I see my own weaknesses? I hadn’t tried it before, probably assuming I didn’t have any. That was dumb of me.
I walked until I came to another large cavern, and then went up to one of the pools. I plugged my nose as I looked at my dim reflection, and, as I hoped, the window appeared above my head.
Minor Weaknesses:
-
Major Weaknesses:
Emotional
Impulsive
Fatal Weaknesses
A̸̧̫̰͖̠̼͉͔̼̩̓̀̋͐͌̏͗̌͜͠͝r̶̢̡̗̙̜̪̣͎̺͗̆̑̌̽̈́͒̒̀̇̽̌̎͝͝ṛ̵̼̺̑̃̒̽͆͐̓̀͌ọ̵̜͉̆̊̆͋̒̀̇͆̚ĝ̸̛̤̗͙̲̿̒̔͒̀̽͝͠͝ͅą̸̧̹̙̦̗̪̭̤̟̌̊͌̌̌̈́̌͊͝ͅn̵̢͔̱̘͎̳̦̍͆́̍̄̀̌́̈́̓̽̓̕t̵̢̡͍̞̟̠̗͍̱̗̱̪̝̙͛
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Emotional” and “Impulsive” appeared as I thought they would, but the black mess in my Fatal Weaknesses section confused me. Was I not allowed to know my own fatal flaws? Was it a bug? I tried everything I could think of to get the System to get rid of the gibberish and show me what was underneath, but nothing worked, so I concluded that not being able to see my own fatal weaknesses was simply an aspect of the skill.
Knowing that I had such a weakness, but not knowing what it was was frustrating. It was probably related to my inability to properly use aura. It wouldn’t normally be fatal, but in a Dungeon without mana, it very well could be. The skill was probably taking that into account, and it would be fixed if I could just figure out what Casimir was trying to teach me, or if I just left the Dungeon.
Speaking of, I had to go back. As annoying as it was to admit, he had been right. Partly. As [Divine Eye of Pride] proved, I was indeed emotional and impulsive, and I could definitely use what he was trying to teach me, no matter how poorly it was taught. But going back so soon would be embarrassing. I wasn’t quite ready to swallow my pride and-
Wait.
Swallow my pride?
Fuck, it happened again. That divine son of a bitch had to be influencing me. I immediately turned away from the pool and marched back in the direction I came, following my faint thrall connection with Casimir back to his location, all the while cursing out the Demon God of Pride in my mind. Taking the Demon King class had been a bad idea. I shouldn’t have let the power tempt me. It was obvious he was using it to try to control me somehow. I didn’t even consider that possibility. But I was stuck with the class again until I found an opportunity to change it, and barring a second round of divine intervention, which I thought unlikely, I wouldn’t be able to do that for nearly six months. Until then, I would need to be wary, and watch out for signs that I was being influenced again.
When I returned, Casimir was exactly where I had left him, but the cavern was not quite the same. There were two imp corpses splattered against the wall behind him, stinking up the room with their filthy blood.
“Back so soon?” he asked without looking at me.
“You were right,” I said. “Partly. I am emotional and impulsive. I’m sorry for storming out like that. But I am not arrogant.”
“...It’s alright.”
He didn’t believe me. It was obvious he still thought I was arrogant. I started to get angry again, but almost immediately deflated. There was no point in getting angry. Nothing would change. If anything, I should have been angry at myself for expecting him to be any different. There was no point in arguing, since we would never see eye to eye. Better to ignore it and move on than get caught up in a pointless debate.
“Let’s continue the training, then,” I said. “Is there any way you can give me more precise instructions on how I’m supposed to clear my mind?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It was fairly simple for me and my other students. I did notice the women had more trouble with this part, but they all eventually overcame it on their own. Also, keep in mind that it has not been long. Even the quickest of my men took a full week before they were truly able to clear their mind and feel their aura properly, and even longer to understand it. Do not get impatient.”
“How quickly did the fastest woman do it?”
“Twenty days.”
“I’ll do it in a week.”
“I’m sure you will. Just remember to be patient.”
Despite my resolve, it actually took nine more days and a lot of frustration to accomplish my goal. The key hint had come when Casimir offhandedly mentioned that some teachers like to use psychedelic drugs on their students to speed up the process. He didn’t approve, but he did admit that that method often had good results. After hearing that, my thoughts turned to the one time in this world when I had experienced something similar: when I had drunk that vial of Anatoly’s blood.
I still had a vial in my inventory, so I took it out, began circulating my aura, and took a sip. Although I was fixated on the flavor, rather than my aura, I still felt that I had achieved the empty state that Casimir had been talking about. I tried transitioning that feeling over to my aura as quickly as I could, and while I lost it, after finally getting a taste of what I needed to do, it only took a day more to be able to enter that state at will.
“Good job,” he said. “You’ve worked hard. The next step is rather tedious, and many of my men found it to be very difficult, but I expect it will be different for you. Simply remain in that state for as long as you can, and you will come to understand how your aura moves.”
“How will I know when I’ve finished this step?”
“You will know,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
He sighed. “Once you’ve completed this step, you will be fully aware of how your aura moves within your body, even when you are not in an empty, meditative state. For most, the completion of this phase comes suddenly; one moment, everything will be hazy, and the next it will be like a veil was removed, and everything will be clear. Also, you will gain a new skill for it.”
“Thank you for the clarification,” I said pointedly.
As he said, I found this part much easier than my initial attempts to empty my mind. At first, I still occasionally let a stray thought disrupt my aura, but for the most part, I was able to sit still, taking in the flow of my aura as it moved freely around my body. It only took 3 days to complete this step, and it felt like I had opened a fourth eye (the third being my [Mana Sense]). The new skill was [True Aura Sense], and its description was lackluster, but I still found it exciting, and very satisfying, since it had been a long time since I had needed to work so hard for a skill.
“I got it,” I announced.
“Good,” he said, looking up from his own meditation. “Now circulate your aura using the method Ji-Soo taught you. You will be able to sense things that you were unable to before.”
I did as he asked, and immediately noticed how inefficient my circulation was. My aura was spinning around me like it was supposed to, but it felt like almost a quarter of it was simply dissipating, rather than returning to my body as it was supposed to.
“Wow,” I said. “I’m really bad at this.”
“You are simply inexperienced,” he said. “But starting now, you will be able to improve greatly. Focus on making your circulation more efficient. And remember, aura is not like mana. It is alive, and it does not take kindly to being forced to obey. You are trying to tame it, not enslave it.”
I followed his commands as best I could for a couple hours, and managed to reduce the aura loss by a few percent, but he stopped me before I could go much further.
“Alright, that is enough,” he said. “You are doing well, but you can continue to master that skill later. It is time to move on to more practical skills.”
“Finally,” I said, standing up. “So you’re going to teach me how to punch and kick with aura and stuff?”
“Yes,” he said. “Once you are more efficient that way, I believe it will be time for us to start clearing the Dungeon. Fighting for real will help you learn faster than any other training, and, as you mentioned before, we should leave before we need to resort to drinking demons’ blood.”
“Good,” I said. “This was starting to get boring.”
“Don’t get too excited just yet,” he warned. “Making your attacks more efficient is more difficult than what you have been doing. There is still more time to be bored.”
During the actual combat training, I finally felt like I was getting back to form, and I felt like I was learning at my usual speed again. At the start, my efficiency was terrible; I was only effectively using a tenth of the aura I was expending. By the end of a week though, I had gotten that up to three quarters, and even Casimir looked impressed, which was a look I had never seen on him before.
“Your progress is truly impressive,” said Casimir. “You are ready. I believe that it is now time we depart.”
“I agree,” I said. “I could probably get even better with more time, but I’m sick of the smell of this place. Let’s go kill some demons.”
“Yes, let’s.”